A record 30,000 square miles (80,000 square kilometers) have burned, an area nearly as large as South Carolina, according to the Canadian government.Īnd fire season usually doesn’t really get going until July in Canada. Nearly every province in Canada has fires burning. And they said those fires aren’t likely to die down anytime soon, with nothing in the forecast that looks likely to change. Moyer and Carbin said it’s too soon to tell if that’s the case.īut Carbin and Canadian fire scientist Mike Flannigan said there’s a clear climate signal in the Canadian fires. Why is the weather pattern stuck? This seems to be happening more often - and some scientists suggest that human-caused climate change causes more situations where weather patterns stall. “What gets me is the persistence of this.” The stuck weather pattern is “awfully unusual,” said NOAA's Carbin who had to look back in records to 1980 to see anything even remotely similar. “And while the fires are ongoing, you can expect to see these periodic bad air days and the only relief is either when the fires go out or when the weather pattern dies.” “We have this this carousel of air cruising around the Midwest, and every once in a while is bringing the smoke directly onto whatever city you live in,” said University of Chicago atmospheric scientist Liz Moyer. But when low pressure moves on, the smoke comes back. On Wednesday, the low pressure system was parked over New England and because winds go counter-clockwise, areas to the west – such as Chicago and the Midwest – get smoky winds from the north, while areas east of the low pressure get southerly hot winds, Jackson said.Īs that low pressure system moves on and another one travels over the central Great Plains and Lake Superior, the Midwest gets temporary relief, Jackson said. The forecast is for temperatures that feel like 109 degrees (42.8 degrees Celsius) - with 101 degree (38.3 degrees Celsius) heat and stifling humidity. The city had two days of unhealthy air Tuesday and Wednesday, but for Thursday “they’ll get an improvement of air quality with the very hot and humid heat,” said weather prediction center meteorologist Bryan Jackson. “As long as there’s something to burn, there will be smoke we have to deal with.” “As long as those fires keep burning up there, that’s going to be a problem for us,” Carbin said. “The conditions are not going to be very favorable.” “Pick your poison,” said prediction center forecast operations chief Greg Carbin. Then it created a setup where the only relief comes when low pressure systems roll through, which means areas on one side get smoky air from the north and the other gets sweltering air from the south. That’s because neither the 235 out-of-control Canadian wildfires nor the stuck weather pattern that's responsible for this mess of meteorological maladies are showing signs of relenting for the next week or longer, according to meteorologists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Weather Prediction Center.įirst, the stuck weather pattern made abnormally hot and dry conditions for Canada to burn at off-the-chart record levels. The only break much of America can hope for anytime soon from eye-watering dangerous smoke from fire-struck Canada is brief bouts of shirt-soaking sweltering heat and humidity from a southern heat wave that has already proven deadly, forecasters say.Īnd then the smoke will likely come back to the Midwest and East.

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